


Broken

by that_treason



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Multi, Switched Off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_treason/pseuds/that_treason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three little girls, all grown up.<br/>Three related stand-alone chapters written to follow 4x15 ("Stand By Me").</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Elena

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I honestly don't know how I feel about these three stories, particularly the first one. They started life as a tiny little 333 word drabble for the prompt "broken" but then just kept going and going until there were three chapters. Longest I've written yet - hopefully at least somewhat interesting.

 

**\ˈbrō-kən\**

[Merriam-Webster]

**1**

violently separated into parts, shattered

**2**

damaged or altered by breaking:

having undergone or been subjected to fracture;

[a _broken_ leg]

violated by transgression;

[a _broken_ promise]

discontinuous, interrupted;

disrupted by change

**3**

made weak or infirm;

subdued completely;

crushed, sorrowful;

[a _broken_ heart] [a _broken_ spirit]

**4**

cut off, disconnected;

imperfectly spoken or written

[ _broken_ English]

**5**

not complete or full

[a _broken_ bale of hay]

**6**

disunited by divorce, separation,

or desertion of one parent

[children from _broken_ homes] [a _broken_ family]

**// 01: Elena**

The house burns. Elena leaves it behind without a glance.

They assume she'll move into the boardinghouse: Damon's room most likely, another empty one possibly, or even take the couch, if nothing else suits. Instead, as the Camaro speeds away from the sound of sirens, Elena asks to be dropped at Ric's loft, in a voice flat and empty.

In the weeks that follow, she rarely leaves except to hunt, mostly in the alleys behind the Grill. She never kills her prey, but she never heals them either - just lets them stagger away with no memory.

Damon visits her at the loft at least once a day for hours at a time. Stefan stops by every few days, tries to talk to her a little. She gives each of them her full attention as long as they are in the room with her, but when they leave she seems to forget them. They disappear from her mind.

The first time she tries to fuck Stefan, he stays away for a week. When Damon brings it up to her (once and only once) she gives no explanation, and her face stays blank. She never mentions Stefan's absence.

Damon accepts all of it - heals her victims, stocks her fridge with hopeful (untouched) blood bags, and has endless empty sex with her. He swallows all his rage down to become a creature of absolute calm. There's a craving in him for it, a need to be punished for what he thinks he's done.

But even he has limits: there are cracks in him that bent too far will break.

###

Damon's head is full of story when he opens the door to the loft - so he's concentrating on the words in his mouth rather than what's right in front of him. That's why it takes him more than a moment to properly take in the scene.

"Thought you'd like to know: looks like Blondie's totally committed to Operation: Sexy Klaus Diversion this time ..."

The words trail off as his eyes take in the bed.

Two forms are there, each with tumbling chocolate brown curls, each a mirror of the other. One lies on her back, legs spread, without a stitch of clothing, eyes closed and expression soft. He can't see the other's face - it's pushed down between her partner's legs - but he know what she looks like regardless. Knows both these bodies intimately. Realizes he's never  _really_  directly compared the two - they've always been distinct creatures to him, for all that they look alike to the world. But now he can't tell which is the face he hates and which the one he loves.

The girl lying down opens her eyes and looks at him. Pretty much instantly his unspoken question is answered, just by the look in her eyes.

"Look who's come to join us," Katherine purrs.

Damon's brain flashes through four out of five stages of grief in quick succession (denial-anger-bargaining-depression) before skipping straight over acceptance in a mad dash to turn around and start again. He lands on anger as a good place to live for the moment, or possibly forever, depending on what happens in the next few minutes.

"The fuck is this?"

Elena's head freezes in place between Katherine's legs, but she makes no move to turn around.

Katherine answers: "I think I already explained this once before, say about 150 years ago. When two people love each other very much..."

"Or one person loves someone very much and the other person is a goddamn tramp. Elena, what's going on?"

A muffled sigh rises up from the bed right before Elena twists to face him. Her face is blank and her eyes are empty, no difference from yesterday or the day before. But then she snickers to herself and a wide grin crosses her lips (although it never makes it to her eyes).

"I'd like my dollar now please." She swings her hand out like a kid begging for candy money.

"You want money?" Now there's a layer of puzzled on top of the angry already at home on his face.

"Don't you remember?" She mimics Damon's tone: " 'If I see something I haven't seen before, I'll throw a dollar at it.' I'm more than positive you've never seen this before and I'd like my dollar now, please."

"Sorry, all out of cash. What's with the show?"

All the amusement drains from Elena's face. "Show?"

"I doubt you were attacked by a curling iron in the night, Elena. I  _also_ doubt that Katherine's somehow forced you to slather on two tons of eye makeup." He's seething now, hands balled into fists at either side, spitting his words out one by one. "Which leads me to the frankly startling conclusion that you're a willing participant, complete with hair and makeup, in whatever it is that means I  _now_   _owe you a fucking dollar_."

Katherine checks her flawless nails. "I think it's pretty obvious what we're doing. As for why, honestly it was only a matter of time before-"

Elena and Damon shout in unison "Shut up Katherine" because there's one thing left in the world on which they both agree. Elena hops off the bed and takes four wide strides to stand directly in front of him, hands on naked hips, no sign of embarrassment showing. Katherine just crosses her arms and sulks.

"When did you become such a prude, Damon? Sad news for all the ladies of the world: the bad-boy sex fiend thing is really just an act."

" _Fuck,_ Elena, what is it you think you're doing, with all of this screwing around? Trying to prove some kind of point? Beat my high score?"

"Human Me was all bound up with 'doing the right thing' - whatever that's supposed to mean. Old Vampire Me was all conflicted and angsty, always fighting against her true nature. But we took care of that together, right Damon? New Vampire Me isn't trapped by any of that and I've decided to make up for lost time. I plan to really get the true Mystic Falls experience. You know, collect the whole fucking set:"

She starts to count out on her fingers.

"You'll fuck me quick as breathing. Check."

"Stefan ran away, but I've got literally all the time in the world to try again. Pathetic emo sex is just a matter of patience." She puts a hand next to her face and lowers her voice into a stage whisper, as if they're conspiring together: "Besides, it's not like I haven't been there before."

He opens his mouth to interrupt, but never stands a chance. She just raises her voice to continue the litany.

"Caroline's gotten all busy with a fuck buddy of her own, so she's a no-go for the moment. Probably takes Klaus out of the picture as well, at least until the honeymoon period is over." She smirks up at him. "I bet I could work out a threesome when things settle down. Klaus has a thing for dopplegangers, right?"

"Ooooh, and that gives me an angle I hadn't considered: doppleganger fetish probably gives me an in with Elijah, too - I'll have to think about that one. Maybe Katherine can be convinced to help."

There's a snort from the bed, but Katherine doesn't try to get involved.

"I heard somewhere that Rebekah gives great hate sex - so I'll get to work on that as soon as I hear she's back from that fucked-up island."

"Bonnie's psycho, which you'd think would be fun, but really is just irritating, trust me - I tried, more than once. Couldn't get over her mumbling long enough to cop a feel."

"Matt's fairly breakable, so I'm saving him for one big bang on some rainy day."

"Alaric's a ghosty - which seems not very easy to overcome. Unless I start sexting him through a Ouija Board or something ridiculous like that. Not my priority at the moment, but I'm sure if we put our heads together we can figure something out."

She pauses to put her hands on his chest, and then slide them up onto his shoulders and around his neck.

"And then I thought," she says as she smiles that sweet smile up at him, "why not try the obvious two-for-one? Curl my hair up, slather on way too much slutty eye makeup, and fuck Katherine and myself at the same time. Doppleganger hijinks to the rescue for once."

"So here we are."

He's got his crazy eyes on now and he's gripping her arms too tight high up, near her chest. The pressure from his fingers whitens her skin, but she shows no signs of discomfort.

"Have you gone completely insane?"

"Nope. Particularly not when compared to some of the people we know."

"What about the Cure, Elena? Last time we saw Slutty Spice over there, she'd just stolen it right out from under us."

Elena shrugs. "She gave it Klaus for her freedom and he smashed it or something. You don't want it. I don't want it. What difference does it make?"

"What about  _Jeremy_ , Elena?"

"Jeremy's dead."

"He used to matter to you,  _Elena_ , and someday he'll matter to you again and you'll regret this, all of this, whatever this is. Could you just listen to me for one miserable second?"

"Jeremy's dead and burned and therefore completely unfuckable. We don't even know if he's a ghost on the Other Side, so even that Ouija Board thing I'm gonna try with Alaric probably won't work. Hence he's not on the entertainment menu. Hence he's not related to anything we're talking about."

He moves right up into her face, nose to nose with her, nothing human in his eyes.

"This was a mistake. All of this, from the beginning."

"There are no mistakes,  _Damon_. You don't seem to get this,  _Damon_. The reality of things, now. I turned my heart off and now I'm heart-less. Less, lesser, less-than, less now than I was" She spits every word into his too close face. "- and the world is so much more. And I want it, I want more. I thought you would understand that, Damon."

"Elena, I-"

She covers his mouth with her hand to cut him off; he's so beaten he doesn't even fight it. Her head turns at an angle, like she's studying him, deciding what to do with him - like he's an insect ready for a pin and label. The look in her eyes (or maybe the lack of a look) makes him lean back and drop his hands from her arms.

When she speaks again, her voice has an edge, and she's dropped any pretense of amusement.

"You seem to think you broke me, Damon, but it's just the opposite. You asked me to do it and I did: I fixed myself. Isn't that what you wanted? What you both wanted, you and  _Stefan_? A fix for broken-heart Elena? Well, here I am, I fixed myself. And now it's my turn to want."

She pauses and her eyes drop to his lips. Her face hardens even more.

"You can stay there and watch, you can wait your turn, you can join us, you can leave. It's all fine. Everything is fine, with or without you."

Elena turns away from him and walks back to the bed. Katherine says nothing, just quirks an eyebrow at him, before she snuggles herself back down onto the bed. His head shoots to the side and looks away from them both, at the floor.


	2. Caroline

**//02: Caroline**

“Look-- Elena’s hosting her very own Slut Olympics, Bonnie’s running for mayor of Crazy Town, and Jeremy’s dead.  He’s dead, OK?  I can’t let Tyler end up that way too.  I have to suck it up and protect him.” Caroline pauses to take a swig from the tequila bottle. 

Her voice is small when she says: “Besides, we’re sortof on a break anyway.  While he’s gone.  Right.”  

Another swig goes into her mouth and down her throat, to meet the other two-thirds of the bottle in her stomach.  She might be going for her own personal record this time.  

“I can do this.  I am Caroline Forbes, Miss Mystic Falls, Prom Committee Chair, Kick-Ass Vampire.  I can do this.  There’s zero reason why not.”

She finishes the bottle in four gulps and then swings it around to smash the glass into the closest wall.  Wet shards fly everywhere, including into the covers of her unmade bed.  Her hands are briefly bloody in a hundred places, cuts all singing pain from tiny drops of tequila.  

No one sees the bottle break because there's no one in the room with her.  Unless you count Mirror Caroline hiding safe and smug on the other side of the reflective glass.

###

Caroline _had_ a plan.

There were fifty-two carefully-outlined, intricately-interlaced steps that fell into four overarching phases.  There were contingency plans for when things went wrong and optional stretch goals for when things went unexpectedly right.

The night that Elena burned down the Gilbert house, Caroline typed the whole thing up on her Macbook, with three large whitespaces left to pencil in a flow chart and two diagrams she found too frustrating to put together in Word.  Once the initial draft was done, she’d printed a hard copy and set to work filling in the intentional blank spaces with colored pencil versions of the beautiful charts she saw in her mind.  Occasionally she fixed a typo in red.

(This was grief coloring and she was terribly aware, but there was no way she could face her bed while Jeremy turned to ash.  So she plotted in full color instead.)

The plan was flawless.  The printed version was a work of art.  She could have handed the whole thing off to someone with no prior knowledge of its contents and they would have understood it from beginning to end.  And likely complimented her on her design choices.

When the draft felt complete, Caroline straightened the pages together on her desk until the alignment of their edges could almost cut.  

Ten minutes passed as she stared at it, dead on her desk, before she picked the whole thing up and hugged it to her chest for the short trip to the garage.

It was easier to upend the metal garbage can than it looked -- even with only one hand free to do it.  Two black trash bags dumped to the floor.  Can still in one hand and sheaf of papers in the other, she headed around the house into the backyard.  It dropped with a sharp clang onto the cement patio.  The papers made more of a dull thud when they landed in the bottom.  There was a brief sound of wind and a quick blur when she ran to grab the lighter fluid and long fireplace matches.

The smoke was black while the paper burned.

She had a plan until she didn’t. 

###

Now, two days later, there’s no plan, just shattered glass on her bed and tequila staining her sheets.  The truth is she doesn’t really know how to go about seducing anyone, let alone an immortal psychopath.  She’s better at breaking-up than flirting -- finds it easier to get something finished then to let it all begin.

And the worst part is this: the tequila is failing to provide the liquid courage for which Caroline is a little desperate.

She dials Stefan’s number four times, but never lets it get past the first ring.  Chucks her phone onto the glass covered bed and heads to the kitchen in search of more booze.  There’s a missed call from him when she gets back with an unopened bottle of tequila (cheaper, nastier stuff this time), but she completely fails to call him back.  Instead she cracks open the metal top and swigs long from the bottle.  

“I am Caroline Forbes.”  Her eyes never leave the floor.  “I am Caroline Forbes.”

She pulls the phone off the covers and shakes it to dislodge the tiny glass shards stuck to the rubber case.  Her thumb taps back into contacts and scrolls up (away from the goofy picture of Stefan she snapped for his profile) to a one word name with no picture or birthday or email address.

More tequila goes down her throat as she listens to the ring.  Her hand and the bottle drop abruptly from her face when there’s a click on the end of the line.  She only barely manages to hide the little choking noise that comes from her throat.

“Caroline.  Always pleasant to hear from you.  What is it you want?”  Klaus’ voice is low and his words unhurried.

“Are you in town?  I mean...are you around here right now?” 

“Can’t say I’ve gone very far as of late.”

“Are you busy...now?”

“Let’s say I’m resting up for the moment. Have to be good and prepared for when the timer on Tyler’s head start ticks down to zero.”

“Does that mean busy?”  

He sighs.  “No, not particularly.  Should I start looking around my house for your friends?  Are we playing the distraction game again tonight?”

“No...no.  This isn’t...This doesn’t involve anyone but you and me.”  Till this point, her voice has come out thin and raspy, but some instinct kicks in (or maybe the tequila’s finally working) and her voice finds its strength.  “Are you busy or not?  Just tell me.”

“For you, dear Caroline, I will always find the time.”

###

He meets her at the Grill for dinner.  Thankfully Matt never works on Tuesdays and...there’s no one else left alive to worry about bumping into.  They have the place mostly to themselves, with only one other table occupied -- by an older woman too engrossed in her novel to notice them.

“I had a plan all thought out.  It was a good plan.  There were charts.”

“Charts?”

“Just one flowchart really.  And a couple of diagrams.” She shakes her head, mainly to herself.  Her hands are in her lap under the table and she’s barely touched the food on her plate.  Klaus pointedly ignores this while seeming to enjoy his steak.  “Doesn’t matter.  The point is I had a plan to distract you, to keep you here.  To lie to you and seduce you and drag it all out as long as possible.”

She can’t look at Klaus’ face.

“But the truth is that I’m terrible at lying and worse at seduction.  They both make me too nervous to breathe and itchy all over.”

“Itchy, really?”  He looks at her amused, over the rim of his wine glass.

“Look, do you still want now what you wanted last week?  Or the week before that?  While you were escorting me to Miss Mystic Falls and drawing me pictures of horses and saving me with your blood?”

She doesn’t let him answer.  “Because the truth is, I’ll give you what you want.  Whatever you want.  As long as you leave Tyler alone.”

Caroline gulps down some water and waits.  He takes his time, wiping his napkin over his mouth and taking another sip of wine before he gives her any answer.

“Caroline love, you must realize you are in no position to bargain for anything, not anymore.”

Her eyes rise up from the table to meet his -- and that’s all it takes to force his face to soften and the snide amusement on his lips to fall away.  

“This is not bargaining.  This is explaining.  I’m making certain facts crystal clear.  You will get what you want from me for as long as Tyler is safe.  Period.  No bargain, no deal, no double cross, no fake-out.  No lying.  Just me and you, and Tyler out of it.”  

Her words are slowed down, with careful enunciation on every syllable.

“Do you understand what I am saying?”  

Klaus seems so young when he looks at her now, lips softly parted and eyes full of confusion.  Caroline feels like she’s a million years old and breaking into pieces.  

After ages pass he nods at her, just a little, almost hesitant and shy.


	3. Bonnie

**//03: Bonnie**

The dead surround her.  

Bonnie can’t see them or hear them or even smell them -- but she can feel them.  It’s a thing she knows in her bones, a chill that nothing can overcome.  She can’t ever get warm, hasn’t been able to get warm since the island, so she knows _for a fact_ they are there, all the time and growing in number.

It’s because of what she’s planning to do.  She knows this is what attracts them, like she knows the cold is really there.  They gather because they want to watch her work.

Of course she talks to them and makes them welcome.  She explains everything to them, all the time, no matter who else in the living world might happen to be around.  The dead need to know everything -- so they can understand the change that’s coming.  

In the beginning Shane coaxes and prods and cajoles, always talking Silas Silas Silas  -- but after a while he leaves her be: gives her some basic instructions and disappears.   Bonnie shines with her commitment to his cause, and he seems to sense that attempts to control her further are only hinder his goal.  He’s already done enough, broken her down till she exists for only one purpose.  

As far as Bonnie can tell, he's gone away and left her in peace with the cold.  She’s so glad -- so very, very glad that he’s gone, along with his manipulative whispers.  In the time that she’s known magic, Bonnie’s life has been out of her hands.  Her friends use her as a hammer for a nail, no matter what the consequences.  

_This_ is different, now she’s in control, she’s the hand and the hammer and she has picked out her very own evil nail.   All the lies will be revealed, all the broken promises fixed, all the veils lifted and the curtains thrown back.  She’s the savior of the dead and she will remake the world.  

And no one, not Shane, not her friends, not her parents, will hold her back any longer.  Bonnie is free to choose -- and she chooses the dead.

They have no one else but her. 

###

After the Gilbert house burns, Bonnie goes to Damon first because she _knows_ he understands.  She _knows_ that he’ll help.  He’s agreed already to everything, in actions if not in words.  

When he found her on the island, she could see it in his eyes.  There was a moment of  connection between them, where everything that needed to be said was out in the air without a syllable spoken.  And then Damon _hugged_ her to show how much he wanted to help.  He was so overcome with joy that he hugged her.  When does _Damon Salvatore_ hug someone?  When does _Damon Salvatore_ hug _Bonnie_?  

(“Rarer than a conjunction of planets,” she says later when she recounts the story to the cold dead listening around her.) 

He listened to her story the whole way home, focused and silent.  Absorbed everything she had to say, turned all the intensity of that blue gaze on her, so that he wouldn’t miss a word.  And when they arrived at Elena’s, he went right to work helping to convince his brother -- calling Stefan out onto the lawn to hear the plan so that Bonnie could argue with her friends inside.

Of course she goes to him first, when it’s time to put things in motion.  Damon was there from the beginning and she owes him the same sweet courtesy.  

(“Irony at it’s best,” she tells the ghosts on the boardinghouse porch.)

But when she gets inside, Damon is ranting about Elena and Stefan and switches before a word can come out of her mouth.  When he finally flings himself on the couch, eyes crazy and throat hoarse from shouting, all Bonnie can do is smile and pat his hand.  

“Elena’s got him all wound up and he’ll be good for nothing till it’s fixed,” she says to the ghosts. “Damon saved me on the island and now I’ll help him and then he’ll help us and then we’ll all be helped.”  

He just stares at her and blinks, mouth a little open.  For once, Damon seems to have nothing to say.  So Bonnie just smiles at him and pats his hand again, before making her way to the boardinghouse door.  

###

Damon's ranting tells Bonnie where to find Elena, hiding in Alaric's loft.

She knocks for something like ten minutes before just pushing the door open.  There’s no response to her tentative “hello?”  So she just walks in.  

Elena’s on the bed, staring at the ceiling, dressed in nothing but a sheet. 

It’s hard to know if she’s explaining to the ghosts or reminding herself to be cautious when Bonnie looks at her and says: “Elena’s a new vampire, they’re capable of anything.”  

Elena’s up like she shot from a gun, looking at Bonnie with an amusement on her face, sheet twisting up into a fist to cover her chest.  She pats the bed next to her, inviting Bonnie to sit down.

Bonnie’s cautious when she starts to talk, remembering how Elena turned her away so recently.  Much to her surprise, Elena listens intently to everything that Bonnie wants to say, so Bonnie grows more comfortable and her voice gets stronger.  Elena’s eyes are locked on her face.  She never interrupts or argues or questions, just lets Bonnie get everything out into the air.  When Bonnie tears up a little talking about the dead, Elena pulls her in close and hugs her for a moment.  

It’s only when Bonnie mentions Damon that Elena’s eyes narrow and her shoulders tense. She’s just starting to talk about his sadness and anger when the whole conversation falls apart.  A mask slips and falls from Elena's face: where once there was amusement, now there's only cold calculation.  Her eyes are lifeless.

Her hands reach out to grab Bonnie by the face, to pull her bodily into Elena’s sheet-covered lap.  Their lips meet with a crash.  Bonnie’s teeth snap together and her nose is smashed.  Everything about this is opposite of sexy.  It might almost be funny, if it wasn’t already so frightening and painful.

She shouts “Wha--?” into Elena’s mouth and tries to shove herself away.  It’s instinct and surprise mostly, because she knows that the vampire crushing her mouth and neck is a hundred times stronger than her and there’s zero she can do to stop her.  But to Bonnie’s surprise Elena lets go -- although now she’s got a sulk on, pouty lips and narrowed eyes and crossed arms.  

“Come on Elena, we’re best friends and besides this is so much more important right now, the dead need us--”

“Not a chance,” Elena says.  Too strong arms push Bonnie off the bed and she falls to the floor with a thump, with not even a hope of catching herself.

“ _Elena_? What the hell?” she hollers.

There isn’t even time to breathe -- suddenly she’s flying through the air to the doorway.  Her brain catches up too slowly: Elena has picked her up and run at vampire speed to throw her out of the loft and into the hallway.  By the time she realizes what’s going on the door slams shut without another word from inside.

“Elena?”  Bonnie’s quiet now, speaking only to herself (for once in a very long while).

###

Bonnie waits a day to try and talk to Caroline, because she knows Caroline and knows how Caroline will react.

When they meet at the Grill for lunch, Caroline looks pale (even for a vampire) or sick (in spite of being a vampire) or _something_ else (no label Bonnie knows).  There’s a strong smell coming off her (“like smoke and alcohol and sweat,” Bonnie tells the ghosts).  She looks disheveled in a million ways, hair rumpled and make-up slightly off.  

(“This is apocalyptic Caroline, end-of-days Caroline,” Bonnie can’t help but say to the dead, when they hug and she first catches a bit of the scent.)

They sit and order and talk.  Caroline tries to argue with the plan, but Bonnie can tell that her heart is somewhere else.  The intellectual arguments are there (and Caroline has plenty) but all the focus is gone from her.  She’s a Caroline-shaped ball of distraction, who orders tequila shots with lunch and endlessly checks her phone, but never seems to get or send a message.

As they argue round and round, Bonnie figures out she'll never win her over to the side of right.  Caroline hasn't lost anyone, not really. (“Except maybe her father, who was already running away from her,” she mutters when Caroline visits the restroom.)  Tyler's still alive even if he's missing.  Matt's around, even if he's sad. And it sounds like she has Tyler's replacement all lined up and ready to go.  (“Maybe even the one after that.”)

Once it’s decided in her head, Bonnie finds a way to excuse herself.  She won't contact Caroline again, not before it's finished.  No, Caroline is at best a waste of time and at worst an obstacle to overcome.

She’s barely away from the table when Bonnie hears her already on the phone with Stefan.  “No help there either, I’m sure,” she tells her ghosts.

###

When she goes to Matt she doesn’t really have a chance: he just cries on her shoulder, snot dripping down his face.  He's sobbing so hard Bonnie doesn’t think he can hear her or the plan, so she whispers apologies to the dead and holds him, patting his back and smoothing his hair.  The places where his skin meets hers are so hot they burn her -- but she won't let herself let go.

###

At night, at home, when she’s alone with her plans, Bonnie can feel Jeremy holding her close.  She knows it’s him, because of the cold stroke she feels along the side of her thumb and the palm of her hand.  Jeremy does that.  He did it when he was still warm, and he’s doing it now when he's cold -- giving her a sign that it will all be ok.  This is right, and he loves her, and there's no reason in all the world to stop.

She sits for hours at her kitchen table in her empty house with arms outstretched, just feeling him touch her.  Dawn comes creeping in before she even thinks to move.  

(This happens _at least once_ , but maybe it happens _again and again_ , Bonnie’s not entirely sure.  Things seem to be getting a little jumbled in her head.)

Because her friends are unreliable, Bonnie ends up doing most of the work herself, as the days pass and the sacrifice draws near.  They need her when they need her, but that road doesn’t go both ways, not for her or for the dead.  Even Damon disappoints.

So Bonnie builds the bomb without any help from anyone.

And while she builds Bonnie embraces the cold.  She pulls the blankets off her bed so she can sleep with nothing in between her and the air.  The hot water tap in the shower never moves an inch.  By the day of the sacrifice she could probably walk naked in the streets with no trouble except from neighbors.

She doesn’t need to ever be warm again.  The dead hold her safe.  And in return, so very, very soon, Bonnie will give them all back _everything that they deserve_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter went through so many drafts my brain has turned to mush. Bonnie fought me hard on this one and wouldn’t let me stop revising. I know I said I was nervous about that first chapter, but I think this is the one that really eats at my nerves the most. 
> 
> Thanks to the lovely people who are leaving me comments and reviews! Super fantastico encouraging!


End file.
